A survey of factors affecting public audit institutions performance: the case of Kenya National Audit Office

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Abstract

Public finance accountability is increasingly becoming important in the public sector.
One means of effecting accountability is through auditing. The overall objective of this
survey was to study the factors affecting the performance of the public audit institutions
i.e Kenya National Audit Office in undertaking its constitutional mandate of auditing and
reporting on the accounts of public sector institutions. This study adopted a survey
research design. The target population of this study was the staffs located in Nairobi
region. The researcher used quantitative and qualitative methods to analyze data. The
Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) was used to help analyze the collected data
and reliability test was done to ensure that the research tools are consistent.
The findings were presented in form of summarized tables with percentage scores and
charts. Arising from the data analysis, presentation and interpretation, the research
indicated that inadequate resources, lack of adequate training and development,
inadequate knowledge on issues such as corporate governance, professionalism, integrity
issues poses a challenge to a greater extent to the overall performance. Top management
commitment to the overall strategy was found to be average while poor communication
of the strategy was ranked among the factors affecting performance. The study revealed
that auditors face serious problems ranging from factors such as low staff motivation,
lack of adequate training and capacity building, resistance to change problems, political
interference, environmental, communication and leadership problems in their line of
duty. On the area of experience the organizations are served by well experienced officers
only that they have no experience from other organizations meaning that new ideas are
lacking thus the need to inject new blood especially in order to improve performance by
bringing in new ideas.
The researcher recommends more resource allocation from the government to the
organization, the staffs to be sponsored for short courses in order to improve their skills,
more incentives should be offered to the entire team so as to improve their commitment
to the strategy implementation and drive the strategy holistically. The researcher gives a
conclusion that even though there are a few areas where the organization is doing
averagely well they fall short of the expectations of the general public.